Mary Anerley by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (new ebook reader .TXT) 📕

that line scarcely anything could hurt him; but above it he was most sensitive, unless he were continually wetted; and the flies, and the gnats, and many other plagues of England, with one accord pitched upon him, and pitched into him, during his short dry intervals, with a bracing sense of saline draught. Also the sun, and the wind, and even the moon, took advantage of him when unwetted.

This made his dry periods a purgatory to him; and no sooner did he hear from Mr. Mordacks of a promising job under water than he drew breath enough for a ten-fathom dive, and bursting from long despair, made a great slap at the flies beneath his collar-bone. The sound was like a drum which two men strike; and his wife, who was devoted to him, hastened home from the adjoining parish with a sad presentiment of parting. And this was speedily verified; for the champion swimmer and diver set forth that very day for Bempton Warren, where he was to have a private meeting with the general factor.

Now it was a great mistake to think--as many people at this time did, both in Yorkshire and Derbyshire--that the gulf of connubial cares had swallowed the great Roman hero Mordacks. Unarmed, and even without his gallant roadster to support him, he had leaped into that Curtian lake, and had fought a good fight at the bottom of it. The details are highly interesting, and the chronicle might be useful; but, alas! there is no space left for it. It is enough, and a great thing too, to say that he emerged triumphant, reduced his wife into very good condition, and obtained the due mastery of her estates, and lordship of the household.

Refreshed and recruited by the home campaign, and having now a double base for future operations--York city with the fosse of Ouse in the east, and Pretorian Hill, Derbyshire, westward--Mordacks returned, with a smack of lip more dry than amontilladissimo, to the strict embrace of business. So far as the needs of the body were concerned, he might have done handsomely without any business; but having no flesh fit to weigh against his mind, he gave preference to the latter. Now the essence of his nature was to take strong views; not hastily--if he could help it--nor through narrow aspect of prejudice, but with power of insight (right or wrong), and stern fixity thereafter. He had kept his opinion about Sir Duncan Yordas much longer than usual pending, being struck with the fame of the man, and his manner, and generous impulsive nature. All these he still admired, but felt that the mind was far too hasty, and, to put it in his own strong way, Sir Duncan (whatever he might be in India) had been but a fool in England. Why had he cast away his claim on Scargate, and foiled the factor's own pet scheme for a great triumph over the lawyers? And why condemn his only son, when found with such skill and at heavy expense, without even hearing both sides of the tale? Last, but not least, what induced him to marry, when amply old enough to know better, a girl who might be well enough in her way, but had no family estate to bring, was shrewdly suspected of a cutting tongue, and had more than once been anything but polite to Geoffrey Mordacks?

Although this gentleman was not a lawyer, and indeed bore a tyrannous hate against that gentle and most precious class, he shared the solicitor's just abhorrence of the word "farewell," when addressed to him by any one of good substance. He resolved that his attentions should not cease, though undervalued for the moment, but should be continued to the son and heir--whose remainder in tail subsisted still, though it might be hard to substantiate--and when his cousin Lancelot should come into possession, he might find a certain factor to grapple him. Mr. Mordacks hated Lancelot, and had carried out his banishment with intense enjoyment, holding him as in a wrench-hammer all the way, silencing his squeaks with another turn of the screw, and as eager to crack him as if he were a nut, the first that turns auburn in September.

This being the condition of so powerful a mind, facts very speedily shaped themselves thereto, as they do when the power of an eminent orator lays hold of them and crushes them, and they can not even squeak. Or even as a still more eminent 'bus driver, when the street is blocked, and there seems to be no room for his own thumb, yet (with a gentle whistle and a wink) solves the jostling stir and balk, makes obstructive traffic slide, like an eddy obsequious, beside him and behind, and comes forth as the first of an orderly procession toward the public-house of his true love.

Now if anything beyond his own conviction were wanted to set this great agent upon action, soon it was found in York Summer Assizes, and the sudden inrush of evidence, which--no matter how a case has been prepared--gets pent up always for the Bar and Bench. Then Robin Lyth came, with a gallant dash, and offered himself as a sacrifice, if needful, which proved both his courage and his common-sense in waiting till due occasion demanded him. Mordacks was charmed with this young man, not only for proving his own judgment right, but also for possessing a quickness of decision akin to his own, and backing up his own ideas.

With vigor thus renewed by many interests and motives, the general and generous factor kept his appointment in Bempton Warren. Since the distressing, but upon the whole desirable, decease of that poor Rickon Goold, the lonely hut in which he breathed his last had not been by any means a popular resort. There were said to be things heard, seen, and felt, even in the brightest summer day, which commended the spot to the creatures that fear mankind, but not their spectres. The very last of all to approach it now would have been the two rollicking tars who had trodden their wooden-legged watch around it. Nicholas the fish was superstitious also, as it behooved him well to be; but having heard nothing of the story of the place, and perceiving no gnats in the neighborhood, he thankfully took it for his short dry spells.

Mr. Mordacks met him, and the two men were deeply impressed with one another. The diver admired the sharp, terse style and definite expression of the factor, while the factor enjoyed the large ponderous roll and suggestive reservations of the diver. For this was a man who had met great beings, and faced mighty wonders in deep places; and he thought of them more than he liked to say, because he had to get his living.

Nothing could be settled to a nicety between them, not even as to pounds, shillings, and pence. For the nature of the job depended wholly upon the behavior of the weather; and the weather must be not only at its best, but also setting meekly in the right direction at the right moment of big springtide. The diver was afraid that he might ask too little, and the factor disliked the risk of offering too much, and possibly spoiling thereby a noble nature. But each of them realized (to some extent) the honesty of the other, and neither of them meant to be unreasonable.

"Give and take, is what I say," said the short man with the monstrous chest, looking up at the tall man with the Roman nose; "live and let live. Ah! that's it."

Mr. Mordacks would have said, "Right you are," if that elegant expression had been in vogue; but as that brilliance had not yet risen, he was content to say, "Just so." Then he added, "Here you have everything you want. Madam Precious will send you twice a day, to the stone at the bottom of the lane, a gallon of beer, and victuals in proportion. Your duty is to watch the tides and weather, keep your boat going, and let me know; and here I am in half an hour."

Calpurnia Mordacks was in her duty now, and took her autumn holiday at Flamborough. And though Widow Precious felt her heart go pitapat at first sight of another Mrs. Mordacks, she made up her mind, with a gulp, not to let this cash go to the Thornwick. As a woman she sighed; but as a landlady she smiled, and had visions of hoisting a flag on her roof.

When Mordacks, like a victorious general, conqueror of this Danish town, went forth for his evening stroll to see his subjects and be saluted, a handsome young sailor came up from the cliffs, and begged to have a few quiet words with him. "Say on, my lad; all my words are quiet," replied the general factor. Then this young man up and told his tale, which was all in the well-trodden track of mankind. He had run away to sea, full of glorious dreams--valor, adventure, heroism, rivers of paradise, and lands of heaven. Instead of that, he had been hit upon the head, and in places of deeper tenderness, frequently roasted, and frozen yet more often, basted with brine when he had no skin left, scorched with thirst, and devoured by creatures whose appetites grew dainty when his own was ravening.

"Excellent youth," Mr. Mordacks said, "your tale might move a heart of flint. All who know me have but one opinion. I am benevolence itself. But my balance is low at my banker's."

"I want no money, sir," the sailor answered, simply offering benevolence itself a pipeful of tobacco from an ancient bit of bladder; "I have not got a farthing, but I am with good people who never would take it if I had it, and that makes everything square between us. I might have a hatful of money if I chose, but I find myself better without it, and my constitution braces up. If I only chose to walk a league sou'west, there would be bonfires burning. But I vowed I would go home a captain, and I will."

"Ha!" cried Mr. Mordacks, with his usual quickness, and now knowing all about everybody; "you are Mr. John Anerley, the son of the famous Captain Anerley."

"Jack Anerley, sir, till better times; and better they never will be, till I make them. But not a word to any one about me, if you please. It would break my mother's heart (for she doth look down upon people, without asking) to hear that Robin Cockscroft was supporting of me. But, bless you, I shall pay him soon, a penny for a guinea."

Truth, which struggles through the throng of men to get out and have a little breath sometimes, now and then succeeds, by accident, or the stupid misplacement of a word. A penny for a guinea was as much as Robin Cockscroft was likely ever to see for his outlay upon this very fine young fellow. Jack Anerley accepted the situation with the large philosophy of a sailor; and all he wanted from Mr. Mordacks was leave to be present at the diving job. This he obtained, as he promised to be useful, and a fourth oar was likely to be needed.

It was about an hour before noon of a beautifully soft September day, when little Sam Precious, the same boy that carried Robin Lyth's note to Mary, came up to Mr. Mordacks with a bit of plaited rushes, the scytale of Nicholas the fish, who was happy enough not to know his alphabet. The factor immediately put on his hat, girded himself with his riding sword and pistol belt, and told his good wife that